Basic File Menu and Printing Playlist
Excel Video 219 File Menu Basics
Happy New Year! If you’re new to Excel 2007 or 2010, save yourself 45 minutes by watching Excel Video 219. If you’re like a lot of new Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 users and are trying to find your way around the ribbon, this video will show you where a lot of good stuff is hidden. This was especially confusing in Excel 2007 since all of the other menus looked different than the office circle at the top left. I’m using Excel 2010 in this video. If you’re still in 2007, click on the office circle instead of the File tab to follow along.
Now that you know where the file menu is, there are a couple of tricks to watch for. You’ll see how to save a spreadsheet as a PDF file, but be warned that this saves the whole spreadsheet as a PDF, not just the tab you’re on. Don’t accidentally send more of the spreadsheet than you intend to.
Also watch for where Excel keeps a copy of your spreadsheet in case you close without saving. One day this may save you a ton of time.
Now that we’re in 2012, I’ve changed the intro music to another production by my friend Noal Zabriskie. The first 218 Excel Videos used waves I actually recorded on Kauai in 2008. You could hear the birds in the background, but the waves sounded a lot like static. Noal’s introduction sounds a lot better. I hope you like it.
Excel Video 220 Recent Workbooks and New Workbooks
When you’re as old as I am, you occasionally forget what you called or where you saved a recent workbook. Excel Video 220 comes to the rescue with an easy way to find recent spreadsheets you’ve worked on. You’ll also see how to pin workbooks to the list of recent files so you can easily open spreadsheets you use frequently.
Also watch for how to create a new workbook and how to access templates, pre-built spreadsheets that might save you some time and be just what you’re looking for. Take a minute to scroll through the list of existing templates. That minute might save you an hour next month.
Excel Video 221 Printing Basics
Excel Video 221 starts our discussion of printing spreadsheets in Excel. You’ll see how to choose a printer, set the number of copies, change the orientation of your printed report, and more. We’ll cover print margins briefly, but we’ll go into more detail on customizing print margins in a future Excel Video.
Watch for how to print the entire workbook as opposed to the worksheet you’re working on. You can also easily print a specific part of your worksheet instead of the whole page.
Finally, watch for how to change print scaling. Excel can shrink (or enlarge) your data to make the report fit on a specified number of pages. You can shrink all of the rows to fit on one page, all of the columns to fit on one page (that’s what I do most commonly and that’s also the example in the video) or you can force all of the rows and columns to fit on one page or a specified number of pages. Excel will do the math to make everything fit.
Stay tuned. We’ll go to the Page Layout tab in the ribbon and look at more printing options next time. Thanks for watching.
Excel Video 222 Setting Margins and Print Area
If you’d like more precise control over your printing margins or which cells in your worksheet print, watch Excel Video 222. We’ll spend some time in the Page Setup menu in this Excel Video and you’ll see how to control top, bottom, left and right margins independently. You’ll also see how to control the area set aside for headers and footers. The Margins tab also has a way to center your data on the page vertically, horizontally, or both.
Watch for how to control your print area, the area of your worksheet to print. You’ll see how to set a print area, how to clear a print area, how to add to a print area, and how to see which cells are selected as the print area on the Sheet tab of the Page Setup window. There are more ways to customize what prints from Excel. We’ll cover some of those ways in the next Excel Video.
Excel Video 223 Page Breaks, Backgrounds, and Print Titles
Watch Excel Video 223 for three quick printing tricks. First, we’ll create page breaks so that you can control where Excel divides one page from the next. For example, if you have about a page and a half of data, you might want two equally sized report pages instead of one full page and one half page report. You can create a page break in the middle of the report to divide the report equally between two pages to make your report look a little better.
If you want to get a little fancy with your report, you can add a background behind your numbers. It’s easy to add a background, but you may want to spend a few minutes getting your background the way you want it. One thing to consider is to control the balance between a transparent and an opaque background to make sure you can read the numbers in your report.
Finally, Print Titles are a way to print a group of rows at the top of each page or a group of columns on the left of each page. Whenever you have data that goes over one page, consider setting Print Titles to make sure it’s easy to tell which column or row is which after the first page.
Stay tuned. Next time I’ll talk about Page Break Preview, an easy way to control print area and page breaks.
Excel Video 224 Page Break Preview
Are you ready for a printing shortcut? Excel Video 224 has a quick way to change both the print area and the page breaks on a page by simply dragging and dropping to create the print range you need. Even though we’re talking about printing basics, today’s trick is over on the View tab. Page Break Preview does just that, it lets you see what your printed page will look like, which rows and columns will print, and where the page breaks will be. It’s easy to change the print area or the page breaks to get your report to look just the way you want.
I hope you’re finding these videos helpful. Thanks for watching.
Excel Video 225 Page Setup
Do you need to customize the way your document prints? The Page Setup window, explained in Excel Video 225, has several tricks to help you change the way your spreadsheet prints. First, watch for a way to change the first page number in your document. That will come in handy when we cover headers and footers in the next Excel Video.
Also watch for ways to change the order in which large spreadsheets print, ways to display gridlines and how to print row and column headings. Finally, if you haven’t used comments in Excel, you’ll find a brief introduction to comments as part of our discussion on how to include comments when you print. I use comments a lot and hope you’ll find them helpful.
Excel Video 226 Headers and Footers
Excel Video 226 introduces Headers and Footers, an easy way to have important information print at the top and/or bottom of each of your spreadsheet pages. Excel has a number of built-in headers and footers that make it easy to add today’s date, the file location, page number, and more to a header or a footer of your spreadsheet. Remember from the last Excel Video where to set the starting page number? Here’s where that page number comes into play. Excel can print the page number and the total number of pages in either your header or your footer.
Scroll through and look at all of the built-in choices. For most spreadsheets most of the time, these choices are all you need. When you need more choices, more flexibility, or specific text in a header or footer, it’s not hard to customize headers and footers. We’ll start that next time. Thanks for watching.
Excel Video 227 Custom Headers and Footers
If you liked the headers and footers in Excel Video 226 but want something a little more customized, watch Excel Video 227. We’ll walk through how to create a custom header or footer, the three areas of a header or footer, and how to use the icons to fill in information. Notice that my first example doesn’t rely on the icons at all. I typed my name in and you can type any information you’d like, such as a HIPAA notice or report distribution guidelines. Once we’ve been through the icons, remember that the first icon lets you chance the font throughout the header or footer so it’s easy to color, change fonts or font sizes, and more.
Also watch for how to make headers and footers different on the first page or on odd and even pages. There are plenty of ways to customize and help your report match your practice’s logo, color scheme, or reporting package. That’s what I want to say about printing options for now. Stay tuned next time and we’ll go back to more of the basics.
